The wait is over! After several years of delays amid squabbling between former-bandmates Roger Waters and David Gilmour over the album’s liner notes — the 2018 remix of Pink Floyd‘s Animals is finally here. The beloved five-track 1977 set, which was sandwiched between 1975’s Wish You Were Here and 1979’s double-album opus The Wall, has received its first-ever 5.1 Stereo Sound release, and is available on vinyl, CD, Blu-ray, and SACD.
Animals, Pink Floyd’s 10th studio album, was released on January 21st, 1977 and has sold over four million copies in the U.S. to date. Animals hit Number Three on the Billboard 200 and spent five weeks in the Top 10. In England, the album peaked at Number Two.
The tracklisting to Pink Floyd’s Animals is: “Pigs On The Wing (Part One),” “Dogs,” “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” “Sheep,” and “Pigs On The Wing (Part Two).”
Hipgnosis’ Aubrey “Po” Powell and his late partner Storm Thorgerson, conceived and created the Animals cover art — along legendary and timeless album and singles covers for Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney & Wings, Yes, the Scorpions, AC/DC, Peter Frampton, Black Sabbath, Styx, 10cc, and countless others.
The deluxe limited edition four-disc set of Animals features:
1LP/1CD/1DVD/1BLU-RAY
180 Gram black heavyweight vinyl
32-page booklet all housed in a hardcover book style cover
Contains all the previously listed mixes from the above Blu-ray plus DVD mixes below
DVD Audio Mixes: 2018 Remix: 5.1 Surround Mix (Dolby Digital @ 640 kbps, 448kbps); Stereo (LPCM 24-bit/48 kHz Uncompressed), 1977 Original Stereo Mix: (24-bit/48 kHz Uncompressed)
SIDE NOTES
- Back in 2021 Roger Waters took to social media to announce the release of the band’s long-awaited remastered version of its 1977 Animals collection.
- Waters aired some of the band’s dirty laundry in revealing that Gilmour — and allegedly his wife, Polly Samson — would only allow the remastered Animals set to be released if they did not contain noted Floyd and Who biographer Mark Blake‘s Waters-centric liner notes. Waters signed off on the project and has decided to post the essay on his official RogerWaters.com website.
Above the Animals liner notes, Waters wrote:
A note from Roger Waters to Pink Floyd fans:
As I am banned by Dave Gilmour from posting on Pink Floyd’s Facebook page with its 30,000,000 subscribers, I am posting this announcement here today and in full on rogerwaters.com.
First, a warm welcome back to our little band of brothers and sisters who have always kept an open mind, let’s hope some of the fans whose access to my words is suppressed by Gilmour find their way here and discover some truth.
What precipitated this note is that there are new James Guthrie Stereo and 5.1 mixes of the Pink Floyd album Animals, 1977. These mixes have languished unreleased because of a dispute over some sleeve notes that Mark Blake has written for this new release. Gilmour has vetoed the release of the album unless these liner notes are removed. He does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes, but he wants that history to remain secret.
This is a small part of an ongoing campaign by the Gilmour/(Polly) Samson camp to claim more credit for Dave on the work he did in Pink Floyd, 1967-1985, than is his due. Yes he was, and is, a jolly good guitarist and singer. But, he has for the last 35 years told a lot of whopping porky pies about who did what in Pink Floyd when I was still in charge. There’s a lot of “we did this” and “we did that,” and “I did this” and “I did that.”
I am agreeing to the release of the new Animals remix, with the sleeve notes removed. Good work James Guthrie by the way, and sorry Mark Blake. The final draft of the liner notes was fact checked and agreed as factually correct by me, Nick (Mason) and Gilmour. Here they are, enjoy, there’s nothing controversial, just a few simple facts.
To read author Mark Blake’s unused liner notes to the Animals reissue, log on to: https://rogerwaters.com/animals-new-mix-update/
CHECK IT OUT: Pink Floyd’s 2018 remix of “Dogs” from the 2022 Animals reissue: